1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a digital still camera including a touch panel as an input means and capable of recording/reproducing still and dynamic images, and a tracing operation of the touch panel.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a conventional digital still camera, setting of a strobe, setting of zoom photography, and operations concerning reproduction such as forwarding and enlargement/reduction of an image are carried out by buttons disposed on rear and top surfaces of a camera main body. When demands for sophistication of functions and miniaturization of the camera rise, it is difficult to simultaneously realize these demands. To realize the sophistication of the functions, it is necessary to dispose many buttons or to deepen a nest of an operation menu. Furthermore, to realize the miniaturization, the number of buttons is reduced, and the nest of the operation menu needs to be further deepened.
However, the increase of the number of buttons is disadvantageous for the miniaturization. The deepening of the nest of the operation menu lowers operability. To solve the problem, instead of increasing the number of mechanical buttons, a digital still camera including a touch panel which is input means has been developed. The touch panel includes a touch detection function, and is disposed in an LCD display section front surface in the camera rear surface. The menu or icon is displayed in the LCD display section, and the function corresponding to the touched menu can be executed.
However, the above-described touch panel simply has the functions of the buttons, and a depth of the nest of the menu at the time of the use of a multifunction is not very different from that in a button operation, and enhancement of the operability can hardly be anticipated.
In recent years, a digital still camera capable of recording/reproducing the dynamic image has started to spread. Since the icon displayed on the touch panel plays the same role as that of the button even in the digital still camera using the touch panel, the number of icons is limited. To mount various functions such as slow or frame feed reproduction of dynamic image data on the camera, many icons or buttons are required.
The dynamic image of the digital still camera will be brought into a situation where long-time recording is possible as in MPEG4 in near future. In this case, the demand for the multifunction concerning the dynamic image reproduction is assumed to further rise.